Pictures from camp Bucca showing escape tunnels

This story has been covered, but i thought some images showing the tunnels would be good. Got to wonder how this was allowed to go on unchecked for so long.
One of the tunnels was 600 foot long. Hell of lot of work and man hours to get that far unnoticed.

link for story. news.bbc.co.uk...

I know Nosssink! I saw Nossink!.

Is anyone really surprised? I would read Paul Brickhill's Escape or Die or Reach for the Sky.

The ingenuity of a confined group of people is quite amazing. Allied POW's in Germany even built a glider to escape from Colditz castle.

Seems very similar to the Gaza tunnels used to smuggle weapons, terrorists and contraband from Egypt to the Gaza strip.

yup reminds me of pictuers of escape tunnels from german run pow camps in ww2. tho i am sure most hand dug tunnels would look simmiler. as for how resoursefull prisoners can be . the allied prisoners did make lots of realistic items from uniforms to official papers, and yes much more ingenious things from almost nothing. heck look at the raft built in alcatraz.

i just wonder how inept the gaurds are. why were they not spacificaly looking for tunnels. duhh tunnels and prisons always go together. it is amonst the most common ways to escape ANY prison.

Nice pictures


I still think its hard to believe, NO one got away.

[edit on 27-3-2005 by SpittinCobra]

I believe Hogan's Hero's dug Tunnels under the nose's of Colonel Clink & Sgt Schultz but dont know how long they were.

600 feet . 10 feet a day = 60 days.
How many hours a day would that take? 1 hour? and to get rid of the rubble etc?


That long unnoticed seems ridiculous in this day and age. Prisoners kept in security in the sand = tunnels to me.

I Knew they shouldnt have shown them "the great escape"

As previously quoted.......
People confined together will always come up with some ingenious way of trying to escape.
The fact this happened for so long is beyond belief to me.

According to the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war cannot be punished for attempting escape. The most ingenious escape plan I have heard of is from an Army training film I saw in JROTC.

Three prisoners somehow acquired some survey equipment from their captors and then proceeded to survey their way out the gate. The guards, who presumed that prisoners never performed tasks they were not forced to perform, opened the gates without question, while the three continued their ruse until they were out of sight.

[edit on 05/3/27 by GradyPhilpott]

The only way to tunnel ten feet a day in an hour is if one of your fellow inmates is a hybridized groundhog or something. Ten feet a day would require multiple diggers in 15 to 30 minute shifts and additional teams to bring the dirt to the surface and get rid of it.

I am sure they had plenty of manpower but how did they get rid of all the dirt? That is too much dirt to go down the toilets. I heard that in nam the vc would put the dirt in their pants with a string tied at the bottom so that the dirt would come out over time and they would take a walk to spread the dirt out so it would not be noticed.

Originally posted by cryptorsa1001
I heard that in nam the vc would put the dirt in their pants with a string tied at the bottom so that the dirt would come out over time and they would take a walk to spread the dirt out so it would not be noticed.

This technique was developed during the Stalag Luft(13?) escapes which were dramatised in the film 'The Great Escape'. It is quite effective unless so lond as the tunnel dirt is the same colour as the dirt in the camp grounds. Flushing dirt down drains and storing it in the ceilings of buildings are other methods I am aware of.

Still ingenious all the same.

Thats still got to be a fair amount amount of earth to conceal though.

Originally posted by cryptorsa1001
I am sure they had plenty of manpower but how did they get rid of all the dirt? That is too much dirt to go down the toilets. I heard that in nam the vc would put the dirt in their pants with a string tied at the bottom so that the dirt would come out over time and they would take a walk to spread the dirt out so it would not be noticed.

From what I read, plumbing issues have plagued the site. It is likely that they were the result of regular soil dumps into the toilets.

Authorities in charge of the compound realised a tunnel was under way after they found dirt in latrines and other places, Lee said. It may have been the most extensive effort aimed at a mass escape, she said.

Story Link

what they need is a nice secure metal box.

No one ever dug their way out of a metal box

I can't believe no one has escaped. Given the claimed denial of prison abuse and then the recent discovery that it existed before, after and during the time of the denial, I don't think we can trust the first response we ever get from the Military.

I bet you ask this question in 2 years and you find not only were there people whom have escaped, but there was also severe punishment dealt out to the remainder of the population.

Originally posted by Jeffesq
I can't believe no one has escaped. Given the claimed denial of prison abuse and then the recent discovery that it existed before, after and during the time of the denial, I don't think we can trust the first response we ever get from the Military.

I would bet that there were microphoned buried around the perimiter. Thats what the dastardly huns used to do.